Bay 12 Games Forum

I have no walls. Now I am year 2 of my fort, maxed out my low pop, made 3 artifacts, had only one weird encounter with an ogre who hurt my mechanic and repeatedly throughout a whole season bop him on the head with an alpaca wool sock... literally hundreds of times. Archers came out and shot the ogre to death when I finally noticed the stupidity that was going on. Mass produce so many crafts I don't know what to do with them all. Begun making a goblin snatcher/kobold thief trap room to be operated by a repeater. So much for this evil biome. Avoid the thrall clouds and don't go outside too often (i'm not walled in either), and you can survive all day.  Doesn't appear to contain flux on this map either.

I got a 20 z level garbage chute set up for useless refuse to prevent zombie outbreaks within the fort. At the bottom of the sheer drop is a wall. I'm going to dig out a sizable trap room operated by pressure plate and floor hatches that will do the exact same thing to invaders. I'll probably try to get a war going or to once I hit an underground source of water as nothing of interest is currently going on.

BTW: Its a 4x4 Terrifying biome (no other biome overlaps) and the world had quite a few options to choose from. One of the worlds I genned has these weird tentacle things all over it, but this one seems pretty normal for a terrifying biome. I would have kept that other world if it didn't have messy cliffs which made figuring out what was going on impossible, a z level change every two tiles on the outside is not great. So I've got a preference to flatter terrain. I got the world genned if you want, and one with the embark if you wish. Mod was no aquifer. Didn't feel like that again... probably should have since my water is gone from my embark now.

I think I'll try the masterwork mod after I do a long term evil embark, I dd have some fun when I decided to figure out what a evil dust cloud did to my dwarfs, instant zombie. I did a no item embark as well and foolishly let my dwarfs run into it to see what this evil weather does. For the record, I haven't figured out how draw bridges work yet, so I haven't employed them. Nor do I use a moat. I typically station my military outside at the entranceway, usually 30 or so, and have them train with a separate barracks and food depot nearby. I like to use some traps, not a lot, but I could use some zombie fun. I'll probably let the fort go for a 100 years or so before I get bored of it. I think a zombie dump shoot is in my future. Also... long drops kill zombies, right? Unlike abusing path, I have been trying to limit pathing needs as it is the biggest drain on FPS and my traps are really just a lever over a pit that drops them all to their doom rather than atom smash.

I think I just beat the game. Dug out my fort, populated to 300 people running 100 to 80 FPS for most of it except breaching HFS. Conquered HFS, kinda sad that I didn't get credit in legends for the spear trap kills, but those killed by my military are recorded. I found a few bugs with the game in the process. Produced tons of candy, got a few named weapons and some artifacts, king never showed despite meeting requirements. Was hoping some way to help out making it better and fixing things.

Oh and yes, pathing is a major concern for FPS. Even with 300 dwarves running about a small sized fort can suffer no FPS loss when compared to a 50 dwarf fort with a large area dug out. I made a giant dorm room and that seemed to be of a major help then 200 small rooms requiring pathing. All workshops were close together. Few stockpiles and small fort area that took up 4 levels of useful stuff and the rest was a dig through the caverns and into HFS. HFS even without walling it in dropped FPS to 5, going to guess pathing issue nightmares because as soon as they were dead or mostly dead, FPS jumped to 90. Still not 100% sure on that though. Burrows for civies when activated also seem to cut into FPS greatly. Though in all fairness with almost 300 dwarves running around major issues with farming and getting things done exist, even with no restrictions or activities active. Nearly 200 weren't 'idle' and over fifty animals left unbutchered were on top of that mess. Seems anything above 50-80 dwarves is overkill at this point.

Oh and I found I can run my fort indefinitely, without FPS death if I change pop cap to 80 or kill a bunch of my dwarves off... or just enjoy my 90 FPS and 200 dwarves who don't do things yet still aren't listed as idle? Never could get a war with the humans or the elves despite repeatedly wiping out their caravans EVERY time they appeared. FB was a joke, some semi megabeasts were a joke. Had some epic battles, but I really wish sieges and stuff were more common. I killed over the entire population of the world according to the legend, so much so that the game continually created new entries for those that I killed off, they were generated for the sieges and such without histories. Historical figures like goblins and humans and elves that grace my 700+ kill list at year 10. Found that kinda disappointing...

I just wonder what to do now... Not bragging or anything, but just wondering what's the next step in becoming a proper dwarf. 

Did you embark on a freezing/mountain biome. According to the wiki. "Above ground crops farming is impossible on tiles that are part of Mountain biomes (or any other "freezing" biome such as Glacier or Tundra), regardless of how much mud or soil is present. "  So that would be the obvious thing I would look for.